


And Suddenly I Miss Everyone

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Social Anxiety, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: The post office was on lunch break, so I stuffed the letter down the USPS box with forty-nine cents in change and an apology note taped to the front, asking for a stamp. It’s for my friend in Canada, I wrote. His name is George and he won’t return my calls.





	And Suddenly I Miss Everyone

**Author's Note:**

> just a flash fiction story from 2017

The post office was on lunch break, so I stuffed the letter down the USPS box with forty-nine cents in change and an apology note taped to the front, asking for a stamp. It’s for my friend in Canada, I wrote. His name is George and he won’t return my calls.

Mrs. Miller was walking her shi tzu down the street. The dog’s tongue leaked spit in a long line behind them. Breadcrumbs, I thought. I waved to her. She was my mother’s friend, once. A few years back, before Mrs. Miller started locking her doors. Mrs. Miller stared at my airborne hand, her blue eyes bulging. My palm grew sweaty, hanging in the air. But she just stared. So I just waved, my arm burning. Hello, I didn’t say. What’s wrong, I didn’t say. Why does everyone leave me, I didn’t say. 

And I watched her walk away. Her eyes trained on my hand as she turned the corner and disappeared from my life again. 

I began my trek back up the hill to my house, just half a mile out. All my socks had holes in the heels and I was getting blisters. I walked gingerly, like a cat over a leaky faucet. My toes tapping against the cement. I was a little prima ballerina. Dainty and bulimic. I was alone, on the sidewalk, tripping my way uphill. Nobody was anywhere. The streets were empty. The yards silent. A dog choking on his leash, tied to his little doghouse. But that was all. That was everyone. 

My mother was home, wiping down the countertop. She looked at me with big, wet eyes and long lashes. Cow’s eyes, I thought. I wanted to tell her that I saw Mrs. Miller walking her shi tzu down the street, that the dog leaked spit like the broken faucet in our bathroom, over the sink our cat kept falling into. I wanted to tell her that all my socks had holes in the heels and that I was getting bad blisters, that I walked bowlegged now. I wanted to tell her that my friends never returned any of my calls, anymore. Not even my distant friends. 

I told her that I needed to take a dump. She grunted. I walked into the bathroom and I fumbled for the light. There were no windows in the bathroom, so it was always dark. Like a cave that existed just for shitting.

The cat was inside the bathroom. She always was. I sat on the toilet and I watched the cat. Her tail flicked back and forth in irritation, in time with the drip of the faucet. Water matting her fur. But she didn’t move. I realized that my jeans were still on. It felt strange, to sit on the toilet with pants on. Like a chair with no bottom. I could fall right through, forever.

The phone rang, in the living room. It kept ringing. I could hear my mother, in the kitchen, wiping down the countertop. It kept ringing. She kept wiping. The cat didn’t move.  I watched her. I didn’t move, either. 

The phone kept ringing. 

And then it stopped. 

It could have been someone, I thought to myself and I felt instantly awful. It could have been anyone, I told myself. It could have been George. I hoped it wasn’t George because then my letter would have been a waste of forty-nine cents and my dignity. But it could have been George. How embarrassing, I thought, if it were George. I just wrote him a letter. I wrote, in the letter, that I missed him. I hoped he would call me. I assumed someone was dead, hopefully not him. I told him that everyone I knew was locking their doors, now. All the people I knew were closing up. I told him I was so frightened of the insides of people’s homes. I told him I dreamt of Québec, that it was cold and busy with city lights in Montréal. But north of that, it was icy and lonely. The wailing wind, darting through trees’ outstretched fingers. Denying full contact. 

I told him, in the letter, that my mother cooked the same three things every week. I told him that I couldn’t get a job because I was too afraid of rejection. I told him that I couldn’t get a license or a permit or a girlfriend or a soda for the same reason. I told him that in America, we didn’t do things differently, but we liked to think that we did. And that made it different. And very lonely, I said. Very lonely. Because everyone owned a gun, now. Even me. I told him, in the letter, that I thought about dying in the nighttime. Only the nighttime, I asserted. So it’s nothing serious.

How embarrassing, I thought. I said such embarrassing things in that letter. It would be awful if George called me, now. But it would also be awful if George called me, later. I couldn’t face that. I just couldn’t.

The bathroom cast a yellow light. The way the light bulb swayed made everything look like it was heaving. The cat stared at me with half-lidded eyes. I once read that that was cat body language. That that meant that the cat felt safe. Something close to affection. I stared back, with bulging eyes. I swayed, in time with the light bulb.

I resolved never to answer the phone again. 

 


End file.
